How Silas Li is transforming Chinese cooking: the Best Chef award winner for 100 Top Tables 2023 blends contemporary and traditional at Hong Kong Cuisine 1983 – while nurturing the next generation
- Raised in the UK, Li spent 20 years experimenting in the kitchen as a private chef to Hong Kong’s elite before helping Baldwin Cheng relaunch his Happy Valley restaurant
- His innovative East-meets-West approach includes a collaboration with Highland Park to use whiskey in Chinese dishes; he also plans to hire more out of the VTC’s apprenticeship programme
Having worked for 20 years as a private chef to Hong Kong’s elite, Li joined forces with Hong Kong Cuisine owner Baldwin Cheng last July to revamp the latter’s restaurant in Happy Valley. Together, they’ve created a contemporary Chinese restaurant that pays homage to the time-honoured recipes of traditional Hong Kong cuisine, while becoming a platform to train and nurture the next generation of chefs.
“Winning this award within a year of joining [Hong Kong Cuisine 1983] reinforces my decision to leave my comfort zone and create something of my own,” said Li, who says he spent the last 20 years “exploring and experimenting in the kitchen”.
“The 100 Top Tables Best Chef Award is a testament to the hard work and dedication that my team and I have put into the restaurant, and I’m incredibly grateful for this recognition and proud of what we’ve accomplished.”
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Born and raised in the UK, Li grew up around Chinese cooking thanks to his family’s takeaway and left school at an early age to pursue a culinary career. Although he was professionally trained in French gastronomy, his extensive travels throughout China to meet with local chefs and suppliers lead to him picking up traditional Chinese skills and techniques.
“Every cuisine has its own technique, but what makes Chinese cooking so fascinating is the fact that there are so many different ways to cook things,” says Li. “Take deep frying, for instance – we use so many different temperatures, oils and batters to create that crisp and airy texture. It all depends on the dish you’re making.”
Constantly experimenting with new flavours and techniques, Li is best known for an East-meets-West philosophy of cooking that combines innovation with tradition. His signature dish of braised boneless duck web stuffed in chicken wings is an excellent example of this, which is a play on the Chinese idiom, “chicken speaking with duck”.
“I’ve loved duck web since I was a kid, but have always found it quite ugly when it was being served to diners,” he said. “Most restaurants don’t debone the duck web so when I came up with this idea, I knew it had to be boneless.”
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The meticulous process of creating this juicy and succulent dish goes beyond simply deboning the duck web, though. “We first braise the duck web and let the flavour mature,” explained Li. “After a day, it gets marinated for another full day before it is deboned and stuffed into a raw chicken wing. The chicken wing is then fully immersed and cooked in the duck web sauce, resulting in a strong and classic flavour.” And just like that, Li has transformed a traditionally hard-to-eat, old-fashioned Chinese dish into something much more elevated, refined and approachable – not to mention, aesthetically pleasing to the eye.
What makes Chinese cooking so fascinating is the fact that there are so many different ways to cook things
It is this level of innovation, experimentation and meticulous detail that has earned Li recognition as one of Hong Kong’s top chefs. All of his dishes at Hong Kong Cuisine are also MSG-free, meaning they require a much longer cooking process to draw out the flavours.
With a menu that changes every three months, Li is constantly on the lookout for the freshest seasonal produce and innovative ways to elevate the dining experience for his guests. Luckily, he does not need to look too far, as he gets plenty of inspiration and creativity from his own team of chefs.
Recipes and stories are exchanged openly in the kitchen, and chefs are encouraged to work across different departments to create new dishes. “We try to explore new ideas in the kitchen through trial and error,” said Li. “If there’s an idea that’s better than mine, there’s no hesitation in using it. As a chef, there’s always room for improvement and we need to learn from each other.”
Finding the right team of chefs has not been easy, though. “It’s been a challenge to find the right people who share the same passion and vision for the restaurant as I do – not to mention having to teach chefs who were previously accustomed to traditional Chinese cuisine to incorporate Western techniques into their recipes,” he reveals.
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With a focus on training the next generation of chefs, Hong Kong Cuisine has already hired one junior chef from the Vocational Training Council (VTC)’s apprenticeship programme, with plans to hire more in the future. For now, Li continues to inspire and innovate in the kitchen.
As for his advice for the aspiring chefs out there? “Stay humble – there are so many great chefs out there to learn from and be inspired by. Also, believe in yourself and your ambitions. When you take a chance on yourself, that’s when you’re able to create something truly awesome.”
